BERKELEY, Calif. _ The University of California, Berkeley, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, was rocked Wednesday night by a violent demonstration seeking to stop right-wing lightning rod Milo Yiannopoulos from delivering a talk there.
The event was called off at 6:15 p.m. as more than 1,500 people gathered outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union to protest. At one point, a splinter group wearing all black clothing and clutching shields made out of cardboard launched fireworks at police on a second-floor balcony. Metal barricades set around the building also were thrown into windows and a light generator was knocked down and set ablaze.
Police dressed in riot gear responded with orders to disperse and fired tear gas into the crowd, which eventually left the area and marched down Telegraph Avenue accompanied by members of the Cal band.
There were no immediate reports of any arrests but three people were injured in fights, including one that involved a Yiannopoulos fan who took offense to a protester lighting a Donald Trump hat on fire. Police also responded to reports of vandalism, including fires set at banks in the downtown area.
UC Berkeley graduate student Pike Long was pleased the event was eventually shut down, but she said she believes university administrators should have canceled it sooner.
"I'm very happy we shut the event down and didn't give this fascist a platform," she said. "On the other hand, I am frustrated with the escalation of setting things on fire because ultimately I think it's counterproductive to our movement."
David Pedersen, a student from the University of San Francisco, planned on attending Yiannopoulos' sold-out event _ dubbed "The Dangerous Faggot Tour" _ with a group of classmates.
"Kids from this school, smashing their own building," he said. "They don't want to talk politically. They just want violence. No free speech."
His classmate Anthony, who would only give his first name, said "it's like 'Lord of the Flies' out here."
The scene Wednesday stood in stark contrast to the Free Speech Movement of the mid-1960s, which saw a group of UC Berkeley students push university officials to lift a ban on campus political activities and recognize students' right to freedom of speech and academic freedom.
"One thing we do know for sure, the left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down," Yiannopoulos wrote in a Facebook post after the event was canceled.
Yiannopoulos' traveling show also had planned stops at UC Davis and UCLA.
Part of the self-proclaimed gay conservative's shtick is to antagonize people on the left while thrilling his right-wing followers with expressions of misogyny, racism and hostility toward Islam, and the brazenness of his disdain for political correctness. His recent actions include publicly outing a transgender student activist at a University of Wisconsin event in December.
Last month, protests forced the cancellation of scheduled speeches at UC Davis by Yiannopoulos, a writer for the right-wing Breitbart News, and Martin Shkreli, a former pharmaceutical executive who drew widespread ire for dramatically driving up the cost of medications. That event was sponsored by the UC Davis College Republicans, whose UC Berkeley counterparts organized the Wednesday event at Cal.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin took to Twitter to speak out against the appearance Wednesday.
"Using speech to silence marginalized communities and promote bigotry is unacceptable," he wrote. "Hate speech isn't welcome in our community."
But UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, in a Jan. 26 statement, resisted calls to cancel Wednesday's event, even as he denounced Yiannopoulos as "a troll and provocateur who uses odious behavior in part to 'entertain,' but also to deflect any serious engagement with ideas."
"He has been widely and rightly condemned for engaging in hate speech directed at a wide range of groups and individuals, as well as for disparaging and ridiculing individual audience members, particularly members of the LGBTQ community," he added.
"Since the announcement of Mr. Yiannopoulos's visit, we have received many requests that we ban him from campus and cancel the event," Dirks said in the statement. However, "Consistent with the dictates of the First Amendment as uniformly and decisively interpreted by the courts, the university cannot censor or prohibit events."
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